


True Resurrection

by jjtaylor



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Dissociation, Empire Kids, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Implied Molly/Caleb, maybe talk to Caduceus before you try to resurrect anyone, post-episode: c2ep86
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:34:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21706813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjtaylor/pseuds/jjtaylor
Summary: Post-C2E86 The Cathedral"It evokes imagery you've seen once before."
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett & Caleb Widogast, Mollymauk Tealeaf & Caleb Widogast, Mollymauk Tealeaf & Yasha
Comments: 3
Kudos: 64





	True Resurrection

Caleb dreams of a great bird soaring across the sky above him. It evokes water, as though both he and the bird are at sea, the ocean somehow both above and below. 

There is a rider on the bird, one he can only see in silhouette. He squints and the sky-water reflects back light so bright it blinds him briefly. As he blinks, an afterimage remains. 

Caleb wakes, gasping, arms waving in a vain attempt to signal the rider. A shadow of a tiefling, grasping two swords. 

Nott asks if he is ok, if he's having nightmares again about his past. He does not know where the truth lies in his answer: Molly is his past, though not long past. He does not know if it's a nightmare or a message. 

  
  


Caleb reads for hours past when he ought to be asleep. This is not unusual for him, and neither is putting off sleep in fear of nightmares. But in this inbetween place, the words no longer keep the image away: Beauregard, prone, stabbed in the chest. Mollymauk, prone, stabbed in the chest. When he finally allows himself to close his eyes, at least the blood fades into the blackness. 

There is a scuffle outside the hallway that sounds distinctly like someone pushing Nott out of the way of the door. He's known she is out there - but she has also not forced her way in and so he knows he can continue to pretend he has not noticed and she can continue to pretend she's not there. 

Caduceus comes in and brings him toast with butter. “There are two ghosts following you,” he says. “But one of them is still alive.” 

When Caleb looks up again, his plate is empty. He didn't see Caduceus leave and he doesn't remember eating the toast, though when he touches his tongue to his lips, he finds crumbs there. 

  
  


“Are you mad at me?” Beauregard says, cornering him in the hallway. He's surprised she waited this long. His avoidance of her has been inexcusable for several days now. “Because I almost died? In my defense, Yasha's a scary opponent, and she was mind-controlled.” 

“I am not angry with you, Beauregard.” 

“You sure? Because every time I enter the room you get this look on your face like you're filled with unfathomable rage.” 

“That look you see on my face,” Caleb says, “Is regret.” 

“No,” Beau says. “I know regret. I've even seen regret on your face. This is—you look like I'm your worst memory.” 

“Not my worst,” he says, and he's not brave enough to finish the thought but Beauregard is clever and she will put the pieces together. 

  
  


The dream comes to him again. Molly is perched like a cat on top of the stake they placed in the ground to mark his grave. 

“We were barely friends,” Molly says, smile wicked, accent familiar and painful in that familiarity. 

“I was barely alive,” Caleb answers, “So it was the best I could do in the circumstances” 

“And now?” 

“Now I am alive and you are not.” 

“And you're egotistical enough to assume those two things are related?” 

“No,” Caleb says. And then, “There is a spell. If I studied long enough, if I were strong enough, I could bring you back.” 

“Why would you bring me back?” Molly asks. 

“So that I might get to know you,” Caleb says. 

Molly's raucous laugh echoes when he wakes to Fjord’s snores in Leoman's tiny hut. 

  
  


“Hello, Caleb” Yasha says. She’s not looking at him. He’s looking at her hands, where she held the sword. The tiny lights of Caduceus’ garden aren’t like the stained glass at all but it is still what he sees framing her. 

“Tell me about Molly,” Caleb asks. This is a penance they can share. 

“He loved movement,” Yahsa says. “He didn’t like to stay still. This house—I’m not sure but it might have freaked him out. Not the tree, or Jester’s murals, he would have loved those. All of us—he would have loved us, but—he would have needed to wander.” 

“Like you do.” 

“Like I used to.” 

She looks at him for a long moment and then looks away again. “Do you think there’s a chance he’s already out there? He came back once before.” 

“There’s a chance,” Caleb says. 

“Is it the same chance that you will forgive me?” 

“There is nothing to forgive. You were not yourself.” 

“I killed so many people,” Yahsa says. “I almost killed Beau. I think I would have killed all of you.” 

“Tell me,” Caleb says, “Would Molly forgive you?” 

Yasha is quiet, but there are tears streaking down her cheeks. 

Caleb finds his face is wet also. 

  
  


He is dreaming again, he knows, but even in the dream he feels drowsy. His head is pillowed in Molly's lap. Molly's legs are folded, one leg kicked out, casual. Caleb is fiddling with the buckles of his boots as he stares up at Molly, face shadowed, sun directly behind him. Caleb studies in detail the ridges of Molly's horns. 

“You look good like this,” Caleb says. 

“I always look good,” Molly says, a toothy grin revealing his fangs. 

“The light behind you gives you a halo.” 

“That I definitely don't deserve.” 

Molly lowers his head, slow, and Caleb lifts up his chin. It feels like a memory, only one he never experienced. 

When their lips meet, it is a luminous transference. 

  
  


“Do you ever feel bad about missing him?” Beau asks. “Like you didn’t do enough to deserve the grief?” 

Caleb doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t have to. He and Beau are alike in this way, the Empire kids, uncertain which emotions are allowed. 

“They weren't there,” Beau says, “But you and I were.” 

Ah, she's finally followed his messy trail. 

“It didn't look the same, from my perspective,” Beau says. “Kind of weird to think about watching yourself get stabbed in the chest. But for you, it must have looked like—“ 

“Ja,” he says. 

“It's still bothering you?” 

“What is still bothering me, Beauregard? Nearly watching you die in exactly the same manner I watched another friend die, or the vast chasm before us that is watching friends die?” 

“Fjord said you sent a message to Yussa about resurrection.” 

Caleb doesn't answer. 

“If you're thinking about bringing Molly back, you should think about what he'd want.” 

“I believe he would prefer being alive to being dead.” 

“I'm no expert but I feel like someone like Molly would have something smart to say about the cost.” 

“I can save gold as well as any.” 

“Don't insult me, Caleb, you know I don't mean the cost in gold.” 

“I am nothing, Beauregard. I am nothing but a vessel for magic. What good am I—what good is magic—if I cannot do this?” 

“You're going to break something inside yourself,” Beau says “And don't tell me you're already broken. We're all broken. But whatever part of you is still standing, it's going to get eaten up with this obsession.” 

Caleb touches the eye on the back of Beauregard's neck. 

“You miss him, too.” 

“Of course I fucking miss him. And I miss everything about him we didn't get to know. But when someone's gone, they're gone. Not letting them go is a poison.” 

Caleb nods. He's good at taking his medicine. 

  
  


“They’re all getting a little worried,” Nott says. “I mean, not me because you know I always have complete faith in you even when you look like you’ve been rubbing ash under your eyes. And I know you’re studying time and possibility and some of us—not me, of course, not me—have theorized that you might be trying to go back in time to undo a thing you did, and, do you know how difficult is to make accurate glitter? And it gets everywhere!" 

"For what purpose do you need glitter?" 

"No reason. It was Jester's idea anyway. Were you and Molly - " 

Nott does this, hide difficult questions in between chaotic nonsense, but Caleb’s response is a little too sharp. “No.” He tries again. “I find myself endlessly tangled in what might have been. Beauregard—” Caleb swallows, takes a steadying breath. “If I could just bring back Molly -” 

“Then you would know you could bring any of us back, too.” 

“See, you understand,” Caleb murmurs. 

“Yes, I do,” she says, too keen, and leans her slight frame against him. “I bet if I put it in a bomb it would look pretty _and_ blind our enemies.” 

  
  


Caduceus brings him food again in the library. Tea and a bowl of soup. 

“He's been speaking to you in dreams,” Caduceus says, looking at Caleb’s notes spread across the table, as though coming to a long-sought conclusion. 

“Ja,” Caleb answers, distracted. 

“Are you certain that it's him?” Caduceus asks, and Caleb spills the tea, his hand abruptly shaking. 

He quite honestly had never considered this. He was stupid, he was so stupid. 

The next thing he is aware of is Caduceus's arms around him, his eyes squeezed shut and his face pressed against Caduceus' shirt. 

“I didn't know your friend,” Caduceus says, “But from the stories you tell, the way you speak of him, he does not seem one to question fate. To try to change what is.” 

Caleb can't answer. He knows it's true. He knows, in his heart, this is not something Molly would have asked of him. Molly had died once before and moved on into a new life like it was a door closing behind him, a sundown. He would have moved into this death with the same jubilant acceptance. 

He's murmuring in Zemnian. Old recriminations. New ones. 

“You are a good person,” Caduceus says, but Caleb shakes his head. That is one thing he most certainly is not. 

  
  


In the dream he is looking at the two moons. Closer than he could actually see from the ground. As if he were at the top of the Xhorhaus tree, and higher than that. Nearly among the stars. 

A voice calls him by a name he has not claimed in a long time. Not Caleb, and not Bren, but the name a mother calls her son. 

“Do not fear for him,” the Moonweaver says. “I gather all my servants to me when they pass from this realm into the next.” 

The stars sparkle and the words are silvery moonlight transmuted into breath in the cold air. 

“I see in your heart you seek to save your friends from the fate you fear for yourself.” 

“There is no one waiting to gather me close, when my time comes.” 

“You don't know what awaits you,” she says, a stern teacher. And then more gently, she adds, “Or what awaits any of them. It may very well be the arms of a friend. Do not trifle with fate so much that you deny yourself the chance to find out.” 

“Are you ok, Caleb?” Nott asks. She is lax against him as he wakes from the dream. 

“No,” he says, finding there is no need to lie. 

“Is there someone you need me to kill?” she asks sleepily. “The glitter bomb is almost a go.” 

Caleb whispers gently, “Go back to sleep, Nott.” She does easily, but he finds he cannot take his own advice. 

  
  


Drinking around the tree, late into the night on their roof, Beauregard is the first one to bring up Molly. 

“Remember when he mocked a spider to death?” 

“Remember when you two got positively baked on that ghost-mushroom powder?” Nott offers. 

“Remember his dick?” Jester says. Caduceus eyes go wide. “Oh I don't mean like that. We saw it at the bathhouse. It was a good one.” 

“I'm sorry,” Caleb says, louder than he means. 

“For what? For thinking you could bring our friend back to life? I don't think that's something to apologize for,” Beau says. 

“I was mistaken,” Caleb says. 

“Well at least you figured it out before you brought forth some villainous fiend. Or brought back a zombie.” Fjord says. 

At least now Caleb can look at Beauregard without beginning to tremble. Still, the ghosts line up and stretch out behind him. 

“Zombie Molly could still get it,” Jester says. 

None of them disagree.

**Author's Note:**

> True Resurrection is a 9th level necromancy spell. I was researching something else when I found an article about "Most Powerful D&D Spells" that had fanart of the M9's hands around Molly's body under the entry on True Resurrection, and, I couldn't get past it.  
> Update: Here's a link to the art https://www.artstation.com/artwork/bAmrk


End file.
